AP English Language & Composition Crash Course

PART I:

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1

Keys for Success on the AP English Language and Composition Exam

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

—Colin Powell

OVERVIEW

Congratulations! You have chosen to enhance your AP English Language study with the help of this Crash Course. You are a person who wants to know more and go further. That speaks well of your intent to do what it takes to succeed. In the chapters that follow, you will get content-specific help, tips for success, and general insight about what you need to know to be successful on the AP English Language and Composition exam. This chapter gives you a glimpse into the structure and scoring of the exam as well as general ways you can prepare yourself for the big day in May.

STRUCTURE OF THE EXAM

Part I: Multiple Choice—There are approximately 4-5 passages to read and 55 multiple-choice questions to answer in 60 minutes. This section represents 45 percent of your total score.

Part II: Free Response—You are given a 15-minute reading period, then 120 minutes to write three essays, one of which is the synthesis essay. This section represents 55 percent of your total score.

Test proctors will give a ten-minute break between Part I and Part II. Your AP English Language and Composition instructor is not allowed to proctor your exam.

SCORING OF THE EXAM

The multiple-choice section of the exam is scored by machine.

The three essays are scored by College Board readers in early June. Readers include college professors and experienced AP English teachers, who meet for this purpose. These readers score essays using scoring guides created by the College Board’s test development committee for this exam. Your essay is not identified by name or geographical location.

The scores from Part I and II are combined to create a composite score. See how to estimate your score later in this chapter.

Scores are reported to students and designated colleges in July.

AP SCORE SCALE

Qualification is to receive college credit or advanced placement.

In their information to students, the College Board writes that, You may be very surprised to see that your composite score can be approximately two-thirds of the total possible score and you could still earn a grade of 5! Earning that score on other exams might translate to an F at worst and a D at best. In other words, you do not have to get all the multiple-choice questions correct or write perfect essays to get a high score on the exam.

In the 2007 figures reported by the College Board, 59 percent of all students who took the exam scored a 3 or higher. And while fewer than 10 percent of students scored a 5 in 2007, which says a bit about the difficulty of the exam, you should focus on the high number who passed. A score of 3, 4, or 5 will commonly earn you college credits but always check with your intended colleges for their AP credit policy.

2007: ENGLISH LANGUAGE GRADE DISTRIBUTIONS

IMPORTANT NOTE

According to the College Board, Beginning in 2011, total scores on the multiple-choice section are based on the number of questions answered correctly. Points are no longer deducted for incorrect answers and, as always, no points are awarded for unanswered questions. The scoring method for essays remains unchanged. The formula below reflects this change.

ESTIMATING YOUR SCORE

The following form is intended to help you estimate your score when using practice exams. It can only give a general prediction and should not be taken too seriously as an indicator of your potential success. For one thing, if you are scoring your own essays, you may be too hard on yourself. Also, ranges for composite scores can change from year to year as the exam itself changes. The model below is based on 52 questions in Part I.

PART I: MULTIPLE-CHOICE

PART II: FREE-RESPONSE

Essay 1: _______ × 3.0556 = _______ (do not round up)

Essay 2: _______ × 3.0556 = _______ (do not round up)

Essay 3: _______ × 3.0556 = _______ (do not round up)

ESTIMATING YOUR COMPOSITE SCORE:

TRANSLATING YOUR COMPOSITE SCORE INTO AN AP GRADE:

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT EXAM DAY

What you can (should have) and cannot have in the exam room:

PREPARING YOURSELF PERSONALLY

Eat well in the weeks prior to the exam. Get used to eating breakfast, so that you can eat a good breakfast on exam day since the AP English Language exam is generally scheduled in the morning. A good breakfast for your brain consists of fruit, lean protein, and complex carbohydrates. Also, drink water instead of sugared drinks. Energy drinks are notoriously loaded with sugar and should be avoided.

Get enough sleep and not just the night before the exam. Establish good sleep patterns in the weeks prior to the exam. Teens typically do not get enough sleep. Aim for 8–9 hours a night.

Wake up early enough to be fully awake and ready to go on exam day. Set your alarm so you don’t oversleep. You don’t want to be groggy!

Caffeine may help you be more alert, but overdoing it can make you jittery and make it hard for you to focus. If you are not accustomed to caffeine, you shouldn’t have any on exam day.

Wear comfortable clothes and shoes on the day of the exam. Prepare for fluctuations in room temperature by wearing layers that you can adjust.

See more in Chapter 2 about what you can do to prepare for exam day.

Chapter 2

The Student’s Tools: What You Can Do to Ensure Success

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

—Benjamin Franklin

OVERVIEW

Any study text is useless if you don’t pair it your best intentions. This brief chapter simply outlines what you can do to enhance your own success.

A STATE OF MIND: THE 3 D’s

DESIRE:

This book can only help so much. You have to want to be successful. Your desire to do well must translate into your determination and diligence. In addition, your desire must be combined with a positive and energetic attitude. You have chosen this task because you desire to push yourself. It won’t be easy, but most things worthy of our time are not easy.

DETERMINATION:

Whether or not you are using this book with a structured AP course, you have a lot to accomplish. No book or teacher can do for you what you need to do for yourself. You must be resolute in your determination to accomplish your goals.

DILIGENCE:

You have to keep at it, even when things get tough.

Make a bracelet to wear that displays the three Ds to remind you about the importance of your state of mind. If you ever feel like slacking, your bracelet can remind you to put your all into the effort. You can also add Ben Franklin’s quotation, shown at the beginning of this chapter, for inspiration.

A MATTER OF TIME

You may have heard the saying, What’s worth doing, is worth doing well. This is so true for your preparation for the AP English Language and Composition exam. While the title of this book is AP English Language and Composition Crash Course, it will be very difficult for you to literally cram in a short period of time. The information and tips you get in this book will help you either way, but it is best if you start early enough to really learn what you need to know. Except for some literary terms, there is little in this text that you can actually memorize. Instead, you need to develop your reading, writing, and thinking skills.

It is best to give yourself at least six to nine months to prepare for the exam. If that is not possible, then a few weeks of serious review with this book will definitely help you earn a higher score on the exam.

SUGGESTED STRATEGIES FOR USING THIS BOOK

Read the entire book, making notes about which chapters seem most necessary for you to study. Focus on what you need to know instead of what you already know.

Make a goal sheet, listing specific tasks for the upcoming months. Examples of these tasks might be:

Read and study several texts, maybe two books and four articles (See Chapter 4 for a list of authors and texts.)

Practice annotating all the texts I read.

Good goals have time limits, so be sure to say when you plan to meet your goals.

Re-read this book as often as necessary to reinforce ideas. Most people will not remember everything they read the first time.

Make a short list of the five most important skills you need to improve before test time, such as reading complex texts or understanding satire. Find ways to practice those skills.

Form a study team with friends who are also taking the exam. Learn from each other. Here are some reasons to form a study team:

Quizzing each other on terms can help you remember them.

You can share your essays with your group. Peer review can help you see strengths and weaknesses in your writing, and by reading others’ work, you can learn from them as well.

If you all read the same books, you can discuss them, which helps to understand a text more completely.

If you get frustrated, try these strategies:

Analyze the reason for your frustration. Why are you frustrated? What can you do to lessen how you feel?

Take a short break to refocus: go for a walk outdoors, without headphones. Let nature (or the city) help you get out of yourself for awhile.

Talk to your study group and vent, but then find ways together to get back on track.

Ask your teacher for help.

MORE TIPS

Penmanship counts! Not everyone has good penmanship, but in preparation for the exam, you should do as much as you can to improve your penmanship. If you do not write legibly on your essays, you are jeopardizing your score. You cannot expect tired, overworked AP exam readers to struggle with your essay needlessly because they cannot read your handwriting. When you write your practice essays, always use blue or black ink and always write with an imagined reader in mind.

This exam is about scholarship. You should think of yourself as you embark on this quest as an upper-level scholar—a college student, really. If you wear the garb of a scholar, even metaphorically, it will influence how you think about things.

Your attitude is more important than you think—it influences everything, even your physical well-being. A positive attitude will give you energy and confidence. A negative attitude will:

—Limit your ability to read carefully (you’ll want to rush, skim, or get it over with);

—Lead to frustration and fatigue;

—Keep you from having an open mind;

—Possibly infect others, giving them doubt about their own abilities.

You need to study hard and take the exam seriously. However, this is just one test of what you know at one point in your life. It is not the most important thing you will ever do. So try to keep it all in perspective. Try to have fun with all of this.

Chapter 3

Classifying Nonfiction: Genres, Patterns, and Purposes

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?

—Tanith Lee

OVERVIEW

The word genre means type, and there are many and diverse types of literature in the nonfiction realm, which seems to change daily, especially with Web tools like Facebook and Twitter. Are profile updates or Tweets considered genres? Some of you have probably read multi-genre novels, like Avi’s Nothing But the Truth and have seen how authors weave nontraditional forms with more traditional narratives to create interesting and new types of fictional texts.

Nonfiction authors have also blurred the line between fiction and nonfiction in the latter part of the twentieth century, blending the elements of fiction (imagery, figurative language, suspense, and even dialogue) with nonfiction prose. In general, this blend is called creative nonfiction.

The essay itself is said to have originated with French writer Michel de Montaigne, whose short, topic-focused essays set the standard for what followed. For Montaigne, the act of writing the essay was the act of discovering knowledge. He was writing to know, and this may also be your essay experience on the AP English Language and Composition exam, as you will be pondering and writing about topics that you may not normally think about in your daily life.

To that end, the exam presents you with many engaging texts to read, think about, and write about. It would be nearly impossible to predict the actual genres of the texts you’ll encounter on your exam, as the field is so rich and diverse. Surely, whatever the selections are, you can be certain that they will be stylistically engaging and intricately constructed, according to the College Board’s Course Description.

What does this mean? Mostly it means that while the texts should prove interesting (topically), they will present a challenge for you. They will be complex enough to put your thinking to the test, which is the point, after all, isn’t it?

One purpose of this chapter is to suggest the types of literature that you may encounter on the exam and to briefly describe them. There generally are one or two questions on the exam that ask you to identify a specific genre. This will help. In the old days, non-fiction meant biography, autobiography, factual reference, essay, and a few more. These days, the list is much longer. Which genre are you most interested in reading? If you think a memoir sounds interesting, you might pick up that copy of The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion from your mother’s bookshelf. It wouldn’t be a bad start to your study.

This chapter details the specific patterns of exposition that you are likely to encounter in your reading. You should also be able to use these patterns in your own writing. See Chapter 17 for more on general essay writing.

In addition, there is a brief look at journalism through the years. Many writers featured on the exam are journalists. However, the timeline doesn’t actually list famous journalists. Instead, it gives you a glimpse of how American news gathering and dissemination has evolved over the years. Today’s journalists do more than write articles and columns. Some of them have helped make blogging a respected genre.

GENRE LIST

The following list is not complete, but does include the genres you are most likely to encounter on the exam based on a study of released exams. No matter what the genre, the writer’s purposes can be layered and often are. A diary can provide information, chronicle a life, and also describe and persuade. The letters John and Abigail Adams wrote to each other tell us more than details of their lives; these letters are also important historical documents.

Remember also that fictional elements are now used widely in nonfiction, an overlap that makes it difficult to determine exact distinctions between the two.